In the Spirit: the Life and Work of Lex Hixon

Early Practices

An undated black and white photograph of a young Lex Hixon, circa 1960s-1970s. Courtesy of Sheila Hixon.

Early Practices

Hixon was born in Pasadena, California in what he described as the “cultural openness and wild sacred energy” of southern California. At the age of six, during his belated baptism into the Episcopal church, he “whispered loudly, ‘What is that man talking about?’” which he credited as his first foray into the spiritual. “I was not raised conventionally or religiously. Freedom was the keynote of my parent’s philosophy,” he wrote in a 1991 autobiographical note.

In 1954, Hixon left California for Connecticut and the Hotchkiss School, an all-boys boarding and day school, where in the “monastic atmosphere” of the East Coast, Hixon cultivated two practices that would remain with him for the rest of his life: music and poetry. In his later explorations of different beliefs, poetry, music and chanting made regular appearances as parts of his devotional practice.

In a letter to Hixon's daughter, India, friend Peter Pitzele describes the first time meeting Hixon at the Hotchkiss School:

"Of course I followed the sound of out of my door and across the hall looking for their source. And I came to the door of your father’s room. In memory and in fact that room was full of light. I realize now in telling you that his window faced west, and it was late in the afternoon. I came from the dark hallway into the presence of is music and this light. I must have taken it all in a single glance: a boy seated cross-legged on the floor haloed in the light from the window behind him. In his arms he held a guitar. It was made of a pale golden wood; and it seemed alive, a thing of curves and glinting strings, and notes you could almost see were pouring out of it under his blurring fingers. He was unaware of me. His head was bowed over the strings, and the music seemed to sparkle around that head. I stood as still as you might stand in the presence of a wild deer you did not wish in any way to startle and I listened, and I looked at him, and I saw how the blond hair curled in little ringlets over his forehead, a blond like nothing I had ever seen, spun and gleaming, utterly casual in its beauty. I saw the slightly wrinkled line above his eyes furrowed by his concentration. His feet I saw were bare. And when, as it happened, he lifted up his head , sensing me, his head caught the full cast of sun through his window, and I saw he had a face so fair, so cleanly featured, so full of its own light that it seemed simply miraculous to me there could be such beauty on top of such beauty. His eyes were shining, the hair bunched I almost attic curls over a face I had seen, if at all, in museums or in the art books my father stacked his library with; a face Mediterranean and Nordic all at once, a complexion colored like peach. He looked at me and smiled, and there was more openness and trust in that face than any face you could see even in a midsummer dream of New York City. There was a hint of mischief in that smile, something faintly conspiratorial. But he continued to play. If he knew he was beautiful, and how could he not, there was no trace of arrogance. He watched me again for a moment, then, realizing that I was content to watch, he bowed his head again and fired off a set of riffling flamenco chords with his long fingernails drumming a counter-cadence on the wood. Then he stopped, put his guitar down, and said "'Hi, my name is Lex.'"

Read the entire letter from Pitzele here.

All is... self-published poetry book, 1966 Lex Hixon collection, RG 345, Box 22, Folder 6. Divinity Library Special Collections

light.:
as children
going nowhere in particular
one lifelong afternoon
we endlessly explore in song
the poem-paths of the countless presences,
these presences, _each so _singular to touch or know,
are images of the one secret Brightness
caught dancing
in the splintered ice
of earthen forms and forms of mind,
this sparkling spectrum of all there is
spans the open arc of consciousness
like a spiderweb dewsilver
drifting from sun- nourished presences
to intellectual presences
to divine presences
and beyond:

All is... self-published poetry book, page 3, 1966. Lex Hixon collection, RG 345, Box 22, Folder 6. Divinity Library Special Collections

moonowl swoop, suntide sweep,
spilling blood, ellipsing stars,
the· luminous center in the lotus of the heart ...
every light that illumines us
arrowing through space
or rising from below space
contains all light:
silver snail-tracks across dawn stone
and city streets bright beneath raining night
are the one light,
the cool blood in a leaf's vein
and the blood of a poet
are the one light,
a woman's love for the fish-child within her
and the love between souls who have shed their bodies
are the one light,
the contrary purposes of men
and the ultimate non-purposive substratum of all
are the one light,
and light
seen whole
is peace.

All is... self-published poetry book, page 4, 1966. Lex Hixon collection, RG 345, Box 22, Folder 6. Divinity Library Special Collections

Ode to Spring by Alexander Hixon

1.
rainbow of the spring, hidden by the green
ear-like leaves that seem
to hear the rain
falling, now wild then tame,
to hear the shiver of the cold, wet air
who wraps herself in hair
as grey as sky,
as long as pain,
yet as ever new as spring's sorry cry

that slides like colored streams of magic song
into the quiet, long
evening flow,
strange as a rainbow
under the half-blue light of the topworld,
eternal, stilled, curled
asleep above
the dusk that no
spring-starved melancholy can help but love.
through the trees, the intermittent patterns
of a rainbow (that turns
from sky to earth,
plunged in the helpless mirth
of indecision) change as patterns will,
weaving colors, until
the mind mistakes
this springtime birth
of beauty for a fault the sad eye makes.
the mind is the deceiver of the eye:
the sea-green shade is my
vision of trees
who worship, on their knees,
the storming light of an afternoon sun;
will our minds let us run
a risk that may
offend the pleas
of reason? can our starved souls never stray
into the disbelieving world of dream,
inspirational queen
who rules the sense
of our strange existence?
a man cannot escape his bloodhound brain,
even spring's pouring rain
maintains the scent,
strong as incense,
which brings that bitch to hinder our ascent.

2
o black that infiltrates into grey skies,
before the storm wind ties
the trees in strong
bonds that they struggle long
to break, that suggestion of strange darkness
deepens the green dampness,
whose slow-cooling,
grey-hooded song
warns of the needle rain and lightning sting.
but when the blue-ink sky soaks through the clouds,
shade lifts his heavy shrouds
a bit, when some
sunlight, strong as hot rum,
fumes and sends up steaming smell from an earth
that has just given birth
to millions of
long rays of sun,
that stretch so far into the sky above
the dampened forests, golden shoots that climb
until the end of time,
deep, deep into
the realm of giant blue,
where grows a silent world as under seas,
where stars that my eye sees
as crystal and
forever new,
are ancient stone, many as grains of sand
upon a mysterious beach, blackened by the waves,
alone, where no wind raves
or blows the kelp
or storms with wistful yelp
between the boomings of white-lipped breakers,
how many are takers
for a seashore
trip that will help
to pass a summer who will burn no more?
and when the startling sun is almost gone,
having promised the dawn,
having warmed my
heart, he'll move on the sly
into another universe, into
another morning blue,
away you soar
O Sun, our cry
will echo dark and numb forever more.

3
across the deepened picture of green hills
sweeps windy joy, who fills
the sun with hue,
with power to renew
the ancient, deeply-bedded pine forest
that heaves like a strong chest
breathing the spring,
ears hear the blue
air's toneful still, everywhere resounding
with the bass-chord harmony of silence,
carefully, like incense
drifting, slipping
into Life's pureblue spring,
and dyeing all waters a faint, sweet gold,
even the twilight's cold
cannot dispel
warmth's soft sting
from the wood, though ever cool as a stone well.
birdnoise is like feathers quickly falling,
that strike lightly ringing
blows on the gong
whose tone seems very wrong,
seems too liltingly to approach the still,
seems as void of will
as most springsound,
a wistful song
that agelessly drifts here and there around
the unmysterious hearts of pretty girls,
as round their wrists string pearls;
but in the scope
of sad eyes, beyond hope
of beauty or of noble love's weak glance,
springsound gasps at the chance
for real passion,
not sweet as soap
smells on the body, not in the fashion
of an arrogant kiss from poise-thinned lips,
but as the drunkard dips
his soul into
the night's first foamy brew,
at dusk, when calling to the evil moon
with harsh and lustful tune,
he comes to view
the evening's dew,
this fierce-eyed man will dip his soul in You.
4
the river flows in desert, time
sweeps by banks that climb
vertically
from neutral colored sea
of rapids, that gouge in the rock so smooth
a restless, v-shaped groove,
snaking along
the world to see
all the mountains and past spring thaws, long gone
from the realm of Now into deep, still Then,
monster, echoing den
where future and
past struggle on the sand,
producing an offspring of magic night,
who banishes real light
from his birthplace,
guiding by hand
the eroding streams of quick Now that race
to empty into the charging torrent,
to merge with the sweet scent
of melted snow,
deep in the running flow,
deep in the stream of time that harshly cools
some desert-tired fools,
lone on the plain
is life they know
so well as bitter and joyful as pain.
the waters that quench our thirst for life, tempt
plain-dwellers to lament
the losing fight
of man against the might
of time, of mysterious Then and Now
who combine; we ask how,
with attention
and piercing sight,
man can discover the strange dimension
that eludes the deep cave of magic night,
that, in wild-drunken flight,
can from time flee . . .
Green loudly answers 'me',
as earth opens the dark soil to our seed,
as half-sweet smell is freed
into the air,
as in a tree
Spring carefully arranges her long hair.

"Ode to Spring" by Lex Hixon, his award-winning poem published in the Hotchkiss Lit in the June 1959 issue. Lex Hixon papers, RG 345, Box 34, Folder 3. Divinity Library Special Collections

Hixon started writing poetry at age 14, winning several awards at Hotchkiss and publishing his own poetry books throughout his early adult life. He would continue to write devotional poetry, create meditations, and interpret others' reverential chants.

An undated photograph of Hixon playing the guitar, circa 1960s. Lex Hixon papers, RG 345, Box 34, Folder 8. Divinity Library Special Collections

Flyer from a concert given by Carlos Monyota at NYU's Loeb Student Center in 1960. Lex Hixon papers, RG 345, Box 35, Folder 7. Divinity Library Special Collections

After graduating from Hotchkiss, Hixon enrolled at Yale University in 1959. While at Yale, Hixon began studying flamenco guitar with Carlos Montoya, a relationship that would continue for the next decade. Montoya, a flamenco master, was born in Madrid in 1903 and came to America during World War II.

Dear Mom and Pop,
I am very happy and I don't think that I am kidding myself either. Finally all the energy I have available for playing the guitar has been channeled into a direction instead of being sprayed indiscriminately in all directions. I don't foresee playing any music except flamenco for at least a couple of years. I know how to practice now - just an hour over generally systematic patterns and I already feel the results of doing the thing right. The way I practiced before didn't hurt me, it just kept me warm - it was just like reving an engine. I didn't really get anywhere. I have a lot of work to do if I want to do well on exams, but I am not worrying and you shouldn't either because the fact is I do want to do well and I have always worked well in the past under similar situations. I miss you a lot and I'm looking forward to our spring vacation together - all five of us. Love, Lex
PS: I have signed du p for selective service.

An undated letter from Lex Hixon to his parents, Adelaide and Alexander (Alec) Hixon, circa 1950s-1960s. Lex Hixon papers, RG 345, Box 35, Folder 7. Divinity Library Special Collections

Hixon studied philosophy at Yale. He was drawn especially to the works of Søren Kierkegaard. In 1991 Hixon wrote: “Kirkegaard opened wide for me the dimension of the spiritual which he clearly demonstrated to lie beyond what he called the aesthetic, and the ethical or rational.” As an undergraduate, Hixon would be exposed to two other important teachers: Vine Deloria Sr, and Ramakrishna.

Photograph Lex and Sheila Hixon, 1966. Courtesy of Sheila Hixon

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